The Legacy of a Dragonlord
by WingedWolf121
Summary: Merlin can't do this forever. These dreams of the Uther's rampage, the call of the crystal, and his love for the prince, they will never let him live in peace. All he wants is to sleep. Merlin/Arthur, features dragons


Disclaimer: I'm not even British, how the hell would I own Merlin?

A/N: Because Merlin is awesome when he's tortured and powerful. And I really don't buy that Kilgharrah is the last dragon, he's a nutcase. There must be other, smarter, dragons who survived. I love dragons, and I'll twist canon if I feel like it!

Also, there's no way Merlin is fine after The Last Dragonlord. He has to be feeling some pain, and he's a Dragonlord now. Who knows what new powers he may have?

_Uther rises above the man, and his blade swings down. Bright red blood spatters over the floor. _

_A woman screams and wraps her hands around her expanded belly, shrieking as Uther slides his sword through her stomach, and the life of her unborn child sputters out. He leaves her there, to bleed out. _

_Hundreds more, men burning while knights hack their way through brothels and taverns, swords cutting an unending trail of death. _

Merlin wakes with a strangled scream, eyes wide and glowing gold. This isn't the first time he's dreamt of the past, and he fears it won't be the last.

"Merlin!" Gaius. The old man bursts into the room and staggers back, yelling. Only then does Merlin realize that the entire room is afire, blazing with blue flames. "Stop this!"

A thought, and the blue flames die. Merlin breathes harshly and puts his head in his hands. "Sorry. Bad dream."

Gaius studies him. Merlin doesn't look up, because Gaius has been in his dreams before. Standing, watching as men and women die, eyes turned away. And Gaius dares to lecture Merlin on not using his magic, on not saving people, then tells him to take risks.

Merlin doesn't want Gaius to see that the warlock knows he is a coward.

"I should think so. Come, I'll prepare a draft." Merlin gets up and puts on his jacket, reminding himself that even if Gaius could never understand, he is sympathetic. But with these dreams, some of the trust has vanished.

"I dreamed of when Uther went after the dragonlords, and their wives." Merlin sits at the table, poking at his soup. Gaius hesitates. "He went through every town, and killed every woman who had ever slept with a dragonlord."

"And many who didn't. And many who weren't pregnant." Merlin is quiet. "Merlin, Uther went on a rampage when Igraine died, he killed hundreds."

"Thousands." Merlin corrects him. And Gaius says no more, because there is no way to hide the truth from a boy who sees it each night in his dreams. "Thousands of innocents."

**Merlin**

All he wants is dreamless sleep. Just not to dream.

"Merlin, I want you to polish my armor, clean my shield, iron my tunic and do it correctly this time, last time you set fire to my favorite shirt." As Arthur lists chores, Merlin is grateful. The more excuse not to sleep, the better.

"Yes sire." Arthur stops talking and stares at him.

"Merlin, is there something wrong with your head today? More than usual I mean." Merlin curses inside. And swears again when a bowl turns to dust. Thank god it was behind Arthur's back.

"I didn't sleep much last night. Sorry, knew you secretly loved being called a prat." Merlin grins at Arthur, and forces happiness into his smile. If Arthur knows of his pain, he'll want to know why.

"Shut up Merlin." But after a pause, in which Merlin bends over to pick up the armor, he says; "But take the day off. Go sleep."

Merlin remembers that Arthur is good and caring and noble, and the future of Camelot. And he remembers that he is in love with this golden prince.

Just another reason to grieve. Arthur who loves Gwen, who will need an heir, could never love Merlin. It seems his destiny is to follow Arthur forever, always wishing to be someone else.

"Thanks. But you're still a prat." Arthur laughs, and heads out to train his knights.

**Merlin**

He's walking down a corridor when he feels it. A tug, the same pull which he felt before with the crystal, only stronger.

That crystal is dangerous. Merlin knows many have died for it, and that more will. Knowledge like this has started to come to him spontaneously, and it's something Merlin could do without.

All the same, he changes direction and runs down the corridors to the vaults. No guards stop him, who would stop the prince's manservant?

But there should be a guard in front of the vault, always on duty. The security was tightened after the crystal was stolen, but it's open. Merlin's heart sinks.

"Hello?" The guard is inside the vault, staring at the crystal. Merlin doesn't know who he is, but he's transfixed by it. "Hey!"

The guard turns to him, tiny bits of gold flickering around the edges of his eyes. Magic.

_The crystal calls to anyone with magic. It wants to be set free, to be out of the hatred and lies infecting Camelot._ Merlin thinks. Hopefully this is his voice inside his head, not anyone else's.

"Put the crystal down, Uther would kill you for this." The guard glares at him, and Merlin can feel his heart plunging down even farther.

"Occideo nomine vitae!" The guard spits. Merlin raises his hand and prepares to block the spell, his eyes turning brilliant gold. The guard barely has any magic, and he's less trained than Merlin. This is only the crystal speaking through him.

Only a bit of magic isn't enough to handle the crystal. The guard yells as magic rushes through him, and the crystal uses him as it's vessel to affect the world. It's what it was made to do, to enhance the power of the bearer.

So the guard dies, fire coursing through his veins and blood bubbling up over his lips. Merlin is staring in horror, with no idea what to do.

"Nulla." He whispers, and the crystal turns dead again. But if it calls to anyone with magic, Merlin realizes, then this will happen over and over until someone can harness the power.

Morgana couldn't handle this power. The only people Merlin is sure could are he and Mordred. He doesn't trust either of them with it.

So Merlin dashes forward and picks up the crystal, shoving it inside his jacket. He hurtles down corridors until he is only a corner away from a guard, and hides the crystal in a vase. True, it's a terrible hiding place, but no one will be looking within Camelot.

"The crystal has been stolen!" He yells to the guard, running around the corner. "The guard's dead!"

The warning bell tolls through Camelot.

**Merlin**

"You took it?" Gaius whispers. "Merlin!"

"I'm not keeping it! I'll put it somewhere safe, someplace nobody can get to it." Gaius shakes his head in despair. "I'll be back, I need to see to Arthur."

He steps inside Arthur's chambers without knocking, and the Prince practically pounces on him.

"The guard said you discovered the theft?" Arthur asks. He wishes that Merlin, his fragile manservant, hadn't been the one to discover it. He saw the body, and even the prince's hardened stomach quailed at the dried blood on the man's lips, and the expression on his face.

"I heard him yell, and when I got there the crystal was gone." Merlin says. Arthur looks at him, concern written over his face.

"Are you…alright?" Merlin nods, and Arthur sighs in relief. If Merlin wasn't so bad a liar he'd think he wasn't, but Arthur knows when Merlin lies. "Good. We ride out to capture the thief in the morning."

"What? How do you know who took it?" Merlin sounds alarmed.

"Father thinks it was the druids. We'll go for the forests by the Harnabar mountains, there are rumors that they camp there." Arthur privately wonders how his father suspects the druids, when there is no trail and they live miles and miles away. But it isn't his job to question his father.

"How does he think that? There's no evidence!" It isn't Merlin's job either. But it isn't really in Arthur to rebuke Merlin. Not when he has those sad blue eyes, or the features of an angel.

Arthur banishes those thoughts from his head. There are more important things to do than to obsess over his _man_servant, of all people.

"He is the king." No other explanation is needed. "We'll need horses, and provisions. Get on it." Merlin leaves, and Arthur misses the feel of Merlin being in his rooms.

It is hard to sleep that night, and when he dreams it's a nightmare. One of his falcons is sweeping low, coming to rest on his wrist. But it falls, blood staining black feathers, and Uther lowers a crossbow. The bird's vivid blue eyes slowly close.

**Merlin**

"Where am I going to find a safe place for a dangerous magical artifact in one night?" Merlin rants to Gaius. He can see by Gaius's face that the old man thinks he should never have taken it.

"Perhaps taking it was a bit hasty." You didn't see an innocent man die today Gaius. Though maybe you still wouldn't have acted.

"It needs to be somewhere it won't call to people. Or to me." Merlin doesn't trust himself with the crystal, not when he can feel it's enormous power calling to him even now. "I'm going to get it."

Merlin hurries through the castle and picks it out of the vase. Lets himself sit down in the corridor, just staring at it. Hearing the voices inside his head. Merlin shoves it back into his jacket and scrambles up, fear curling at his innards.

He just nearly took the power. It must never happen again. So he returns to Gaius's room and stares at the fire, brooding. Gaius goes to sleep, thinking his ward will do the same. The crystal rests on a table, wrapped in a pair of Merlin's dirty socks.

If that won't keep him from picking it up, nothing will.

Merlin looks into the fire, picturing men and women burning. Flames in Arthur's hearth, as the prince sleeps. Flames sweeping from Kilgharrah's mouth, consuming the citizens of Camelot.

_Not Kilgharrah, this dragon is pitch black and twice the size, blue flames leaping from his jaws and lighting a pyre, a well built stack of wood where a man rests. He flies up as the body burns, his wingspan lost in the mists. _

Merlin gasps and wrenches his eyes away from the fire. What was that?

Kilgharrah said that he was the last dragon. But Kilgharrah was mad, trapped in the darkness for twenty years with the screams of dying sorcerers ringing in his ears. He could have been wrong.

Merlin races for his magic book, and then pauses. The book won't have anything about dragons, they're a secretive race. Too powerful and too mysterious to be written down, and not a legend that would be in Gaius's book.

Instead, Merlin goes into his mind. It changed when he ordered Kilgharrah to stop, and since then it has stretched and widened, filled him with what he must know. The legacy of the entire Dragonlord race is inside his head.

The language of dragons. Merlin drags open his mind, and calls out in this language, a tentative _"Hello?"_

Something else comes to his mind. A great weight from a great distance away, a presence older than Kilgharrah, and without the sharp edge. Merlin can handle this presence with ease.

"_Dragonlord?"_ Shock, and amazement. This dragon never expected to be called by a Dragonlord again. _"Who are you?" _

"_My name is Merlin. I'm Balinor's son."_ Merlin feels sadness from the dragon, and sees the great dragon bow his head in sadness.

"_We grieve for him. He has not called me in years-he had not the heart. How can I serve you?"_ A feeling of euphoria sweeps through Merlin, at this solution. And that there was someone out there who trusted him, someone who was not a coward and was not a madman.

Maddragon. Same thing.

"_Do you live in the Harnabar Mountains? And what is your name?"_ Merlin asks. He hasn't got the hang of being a Dragonlord yet, and hopes this isn't an intrusive question.

"_Yes. The druids live in the valley below. I am called Feujor"_ Merlin grins. This is going to make his life easier, and nothing has done that in a long time.

"_I need you to put something in safekeeping for me…"_

**Merlin**

"Come on Merlin!" Arthur calls over his shoulder. Merlin bites back to urge to say something about his aching backside, and finishes starting a fire.

"Finally." grumbles a knight, and they all huddle around the flickering flames. "Useless boy."

Merlin is silent and grateful Arthur didn't hear. The prince is busy consulting a map, and looking at the trees only half a mile before them. The druids are there, and in the morning the knights will kill every man, woman, and child in the camps.

It doesn't sit well with Arthur. He could kill sorcerers, and he could kill men who wanted to harm Camelot. But to go into a camp and kill them all, just on _suspicion_, and ill founded suspicion at that…

"Merlin." Merlin scrambles over, and Arthur's mind is lightened at the sight of his clumsy servant. "What do you think about the attack on the druid camp?"

"It's only because your father hates magic." Merlin, Arthur knows, is valuable for his honesty. Even if this is technically treason, to talk about the king this way. "There's no evidence, for all you know the thief is in another kingdom."

_Or the thief is sitting in front of you. _Merlin thinks miserably. The crystal is actually in a pocket on the inside of his jacket, and thank god Gwen finally sewed buttons into the jacket so he can close it.

All the same, if Arthur so much as touches his chest he'll be able to feel it resting there.

"You're right. At least they are only druids…" Arthur can't fool himself with this for long. But the king is the king, and his word is law. "Thank you for your thoughts Merlin. However idiotic they may be."

Arthur reaches out to clasp Merlin's shoulder. The other boy shies away from his touch and goes to sit on the edge of camp, hunched over and blowing on his hands rather than sit by Arthur's fire.

Fine. Arthur isn't hurt by this. He doesn't need to touch Merlin, hell he doesn't even want to touch Merlin. Merlin is just some stupid servant, who thinks he can take liberties with the prince.

"Merlin, you stand guard tonight." Arthur throws himself down angrily, and forgets completely that Merlin doesn't have a cloak, and it's a cold night.

**Merlin**

After everyone has fallen asleep, Merlin stands up. He needs to get rid of this crystal, and soon.

"_Feujor?"_ The dragon is in his mind immediately. _"Go as far down on your mountain as you can without leaving the mist cover. I'm coming with the crystal."_

Feujor, strangely enough, was delighted with being asked to hold the Crystal of Neahtid. Merlin supposed it was some kind of an honor, which proved above all things that dragons were a bit mad.

He runs over hills, swearing to himself and carefully not blowing up anything. Finally, Merlin reaches the crags and stones of the mountains, and begins to climb.

Merlin pants and curses and uses five spells at once as he climbs up the mountain. Why do bloody dragons need to live in bloody impossibly to reach places? He hauls himself up another steep incline, and comes face to face with an enormous blue eye.

Merlin jumps and scrambles back, nearly falling off the mountain. Feujor is _massive_, in a completely different class than Kilgharrah. Stepping back a pace, Merlin looks over his subject.

Big. Feujor takes up the entire mountainside, with a body that must be twenty five feet tall at the shoulder, and claws over a foot long. This dragon would have had Camelot conquered in a day. Trickles of smoke leak from his nostrils, and blue eyes dance at Merlin's expression.

"A bit different than Kilgharrah?" Merlin nods. He fumbles at the buttons for his jacket and draws out the crystal. It glows white in his hand, and burns within.

"Here. Take it, and don't let anybody get to it." Feujor gives him a slightly insulted look.

"As if I would let anyone into my horde." He raises a colossal foot and somehow grips the crystal between his claws. "Thank you, my lord."

"Please, please just call me Merlin. And don't eat any people." Feujor chuckles. It shakes the mountains around them, and Merlin staggers. The dragon puts out a claw and he steadies himself.

"You men taste terrible, fear not." Merlin smiles and puts one hand out, slowly stroking the broad hear. Feujor's wide scales are warm and cool at the same time, and the dragon shivers at Merlin's gentle touch. "You may want to go back to your camp Merlin. Dawn approaches."

"Oh no…" Merlin breathes. He turns and runs, yelling a goodbye over his shoulder. There is a colossal blast of wind, and Feujor has risen up to somewhere far above Merlin.

"_Hey! Wake up, wake up!" _Merlin yells it in his mind. This isn't directed at any dragon, and Merlin is yelling it as he runs back to camp. _"Get up!"_

Sleepy minds wake up. Druids in the forest scramble up, shouting questions. Asking who is invading their minds, and what massive power has managed to touch them all. Finally one speaks back.

"_What?"_ Merlin is relieved-one will listen.

"_You need to run. There are men coming, knights from Camelot! They're going to attack at dawn!" _In the druid camp, people spring into action, gathering belongings and choosing paths. _"Go, now!" _

They flee. Merlin can tell, and in his mind's eye he sees a camp of people in cloaks, running through the forest to places no knight will ever be able to find.

"Merlin! Where were you?" Arthur yells as soon as Merlin comes into camp. He wasn't worried at all, of course. "When I say watch, I mean stay where you are!"

"I had to go!" It's the first excuse Merlin can think of, and something inside his heart is crying as he lies. "It isn't dawn yet, we don't need to set out."

"That isn't the point _Mer_lin, the point is that when I tell you to stand guard, you stay wherever the hell you are and wet yourself if you have to!" Arthur knows that sounds harsh. Merlin's not a soldier. But the prince feared a druid had stolen Merlin, and Arthur hates being afraid.

"I apologize, sire." Merlin submits too easily. He's too tired to fight right now.

"Fine." Arthur is slightly taken aback. He should be pleased that his servant is being respectful, not vaguely disappointed. "Saddle my horse."

They reach the camp, and it's deserted. Some of the knights angrily clench their fists, and one snarls out an oath. Sir Leon quietly sighs with relief. Arthur fights down a smile, and Merlin is glad.

"Sire! There are tracks, we can find them!" Sir Golwan, a particularly bloodthirsty knights. Arthur looks at him with irritation. This knight cares only for killing, not what they kill for.

"Those aren't druid tracks Sir Golwan. Come on, we'll report to my father that they weren't here." Arthur wheels his horse and kicks him into a gallop. That was an absolute lie of course, but he is prince. He can lie well.

"Nice job Arthur." Merlin grins at him from atop his steed, and Arthur's heart leaps. He slams it down and concentrates on riding.

**Merlin**

As a matter of fact, there's going to be a part 2 of this. But fuck, it's past 5:00 am and no way in hell am I writing more.


End file.
